A Birthday Breakfast
by gpoy
Summary: If people keep asking for 'em, I'll keep writing 'em. LJ, one-shot, fluff pff, phfff! Post-Hogwarts


It's short, it's sweet, it took me all of fifteen minutes! So, wait . . . 1000/15 . . . that's 66.666 words per minute.

+++

James Potter was in the kitchen of his house in Godric's Hollow, humming quietly to himself. He had gotten up hideously early that morning, because the sun was shining, it was a beautiful day and it also happened to be his wife's birthday. 

It was for this reason that he had left her asleep and gone downstairs to make her breakfast, and, by some holy miracle, things were going quite well for a change. There were no broken eggs, the toast was not burnt, the tea was just as she liked it . . . everything was going perfectly swimmingly. He was going to make it a fantastic day for her.

Just as the kettle boiled, James reflected that he may as well clear up.

The alarm clock went off. Lily woke up and felt . . . cold.

Ever since she had gotten married to James three months ago, she had woken up in one of the following, randomly selected positions:

1) Beside her husband with her arms round his neck and his arms round her waist

2) On her back, front or side with her head on his chest and his arms round her waist

3) On her back, with his head on her stomach and his arms round her waist. 

In any case, she usually woke up with his arms a full three hundred and sixty degrees around her body, but this morning, both her husband, and consequently his arms were nowhere to be seen. It was for this reason that Lily felt . . . cold.

She also noticed the evident absence of his smell. James Potter, Lily had decided a long time ago, had a very deep, sweet smell, that reminded her of bread dough and brandy. His space in the bed beside her was empty and there was not a trace of dough or brandy to be sniffed. 

She sat up, vaguely annoyed that Potter wasn't here to give her the Good Morning kiss she had gotten used to. Not that it was his fault of course . . .

She had been calling him by his last name forever. It had originated for their days at Hogwarts when she used to hate the very oxygen that kept him alive, and then even after he had become . . . 'tolerable', it had sort of stuck. 

She'd tried calling him James a couple of times. But he had asked her not to.

'It sounds weird,' he had explained, 'and besides, when you call me 'Potter', it reminds me of a time when you detested everything I came into contact with.'

'Why would you want to remember that?' she had asked, 'I don't.'

'Well, then I remember that you don't hate me anymore,' he had grinned, 'in fact, you married me, and that makes me feel like the luckiest man in the universe.'

'Whatever keeps you happy,' she had shrugged, and he had kissed her and said, 'You do.'

However, that morning he was not there to kiss her, and Lily wondered where he was as she threw the sheets off her legs and padded across the room to the door and went down stairs.

James looked up from the fork he was setting down on the table as Lily stumbled into the kitchen, very blearily, rubbing her eyes.

'Morning, Madam!' he said brightly, drawing out a chair form the kitchen table and motioning for her to sit down.

'Morning,' she muttered. 'What's all this?'

'It's your breakfast, Madam' he told her, pushing in her chair after she had sat down.

'Oh, well, thanks,' she said, inspecting the carefully constructed arrangement of eggs, toast and tea in front of her. There was a vase of flowers in the middle of the kitchen table that she was sure hadn't been there the night before, and the whole place was surprisingly . . . 

'Did you clear up in here?' she asked incredulously.

'Yep,' James nodded.

'Did _you_ put these on the table?' she asked, nodding at the marigolds in the vase.

'Yep,' James nodded.

'And you put together all this?' she asked, gesturing at the pot of coffee, tea and other culinary creations.

'Yep,' James grinned proudly, 'Happy Birthday, Lily!'

She blinked at him for a minute.

'Is it my birthday?' she asked in disbelief. James's grin fell clean off his face.

'Yeah,' he told her, frowning a little, 'You were twenty-seven years old from . . .nine hours ago today.'

'Wow,' she said, a faint smile on her face, 'I completely forgot!' 

James's eyes sunk to the table and he sighed a little.

'Didn't this remind you?' he said quietly, 'nevermind.' Lily was just about to take a bite of toast when he eyes snapped up to her husband.

'Oh, no, Potter,' she said kindly, 'it's not that I don't appreciate all this.' James smiled faintly but his heart wasn't in it. 'Potter?' she tried again, trying to make him look at her, he only shook his head, telling her it was nothing. 'James?' she tried hesitantly . . . still nothing. Lily decided to take matters into her own hands.

She stood up and walked round the table, James looked up at her at last and his eyes widened when she bluntly sat herself in his lap. He'd find it hard not to look at her then, she reasoned. She put her arms on his shoulders and gave him a very deep glare. James swallowed. 

'You know what your problem is Potter?' she asked in a wonderfully bossy tone that he found he quite liked very much. 'You're too wonderful,' she told him, 'that's what's wrong with you.' He smiled a bit, letting a sigh of laughter escape his lips.

'Listen, Lily . . .'

'Shut up,' she told him bluntly. Those green eyes were really powerfully overwhelming sometimes, he reflected. Her voice lowered into a murmur. 'I don't care whether you make breakfast or not, I don't care whether or not the kitchen's clean or whether you remember my birthday. All I want from you,' she said, 'is to wake up next to you in the morning, all I want from you is for you to love me and to be as wonderfully sweet to me every minute of me life. That's all I want, and that is what you give me every day! There is _noting_ you could possibly do to make any day more special than it already is, see?'

James laughed and hugged her round the middle. Lily smiled, _now _they were talking.

'Sorry,' he told her, with his head leaning on her chest as she stroked his hair. 

'Actually, there is one thing you could do to make my birthday brilliant,' Lily said matter-of-factly. 

'Anything,' James shook his head, thanking the fates that this woman was alive and married to him.

'I want a birthday kiss,' Lily said, making James raise his head and smile.

'Certainly, Madam.'

+++

For Carmel March, who asked for it. ^_^


End file.
